Ordinarily, you might see an author asking you to leave a review. This time, I’m asking you to report a review on my Amazon account. Please know that I wouldn’t do this if the reviewer just didn’t like my book since everyone is entitled to their opinion on each of my stories. And at the end of the day, if The Hunger Games can get a 1-star review, what book is safe, you know?
This situation, however, is different, and I hope you’ll see that by the end of this post.
You see, I wrote this so-cute-you-could-die love story of a couple of teenagers—Lila’s a dancer, and Austin’s a football player—falling in love. Today, I noticed that my average rating for that book, Jivin’ Tango, had gone down, so I assumed there was a bad rating. There was—1-star. Imagine my surprise though when I started reading the review that talked about dragons and Mohammed, labeling my work “hate speech.” I assure you that there are no mentions of Mohammed or lightning-resistance dragons in the book, so I was shocked.
Knowing you aren’t supposed to engage with a bad review, I still left a comment on this one. Why? Because this isn’t even about my book, and I think people who might be influenced by that review need to know that. The review was just too wild to let it stand and influence without confronting it.
Since, I’ve labeled that review as unhelpful and reported it as abuse, and I encourage you to do the same. Even if you aren’t familiar with the book, I can still prove to you that something is iffy about this review. For instance, parts of it are word-for-word what appear in the “Problems” and “Lesson” sections of the #2 addition on this list. Pardon any kind of vulgar language that’s on this page, but it’s the best evidence I can offer that something is askew.
The idea that people could be this vindictive (and perhaps have too much time on their hands) is so bizarre to me, but it isn’t like I actually am the author of The Hunger Games here. I don’t have a big enough fan base to rally for support so they can point out the review isn’t valid. What happens then is that this stands as ¼ of my reviews with only my comment and evidence saying that it’s different.
If you were just a reader browsing and saw that, would you buy the book?
If you were Amazon and you became convinced that the review was valid, would you un-publish the book?
If you were an employer browsing my Amazon link from my resume, would you hire me?
This is a big deal, no matter how much random vultures like this seem to believe. I’m asking you to please, please, please help me get this review down. Clearly, it’s plagiarized, and it in no way represents my book. I want to put this horrible chapter behind me, and I’m begging you to help me.
Please label it as unhelpful. Please report it as abuse. Please leave a comment stating that the review isn’t valid. Help me let people know it’s wrong, and help me get it taken down.
Thank you,
Connie L. Smith
Connie L. Smith 